


Three Months is a Long-Ass Time

by Write_like_an_American



Category: Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies)
Genre: (I'm making that a thing), (is that a thing?), Father-Son Relationship, Gen, He has a lot of feelings but is very ill-equipped to deal with them, Light Angst, Music, Team as Family, Unrequited Fathering, Yondu tries to understand why Quill left through music
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-06
Updated: 2017-08-06
Packaged: 2018-12-11 21:54:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,765
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11723322
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Write_like_an_American/pseuds/Write_like_an_American
Summary: When Yondu first saw the gonk, he thoughtthat’s my boy.But it wasn’t long - barely a minute, in fact - before his broad grin faded. It shrunk, wizening into a downturned line as Yondu realized not only that Quill had cost his faction their reputation, their prize, and their money, but also that the goofy doll in the containment sphere was the closest he was getting to a goodbye.Yondu tries to understand why Peter left, with the help of a certain Zune.





	Three Months is a Long-Ass Time

**Author's Note:**

> **I was thinking about how _Father and Son_ was the last song Yondu listened to on the Zune. Having given myself a whole bunch of wibbly feels, I decided to write a fic. 'Just a drabble!' I said. 'Won't take my five minutes!' I said. One hour and 2500+ words later, I realized I had lied.**

When Yondu first saw the gonk, he thought  _that’s my boy._

But it wasn’t long - barely a minute, in fact - before his broad grin faded. It shrunk, wizening into a downturned line as Yondu realized not only that Quill had cost his faction their reputation, their prize, and their money, but also that the goofy doll sat in the containment sphere was the closest he was getting to a goodbye. 

Quill would be back though. So Yondu told himself as he strode through the market, eyes peeled for Terran junk. There were usually a few pieces here or there. Salvage, jetsom, loot - he didn’t ask cause he didn’t care. He just wanted something for when the prodigal son returned.

Kraglin remained skeptical. That was okay. Kraglin was a pessimist, and if he was determined to be miserable, far be it from Yondu to stop him.

But for him? If there was a chance he could entice Quill back, even if it meant leaving a breadcrumb trail of Terran music scattered along the star-routes between Knowhere and the  _Eclector,_ Yondu was willing to give it a shot.

He’d told his men it was in their best interests to let the Guardiansgo. It was tempting to hunt Quill down under the guise of vengeance, but there were those among their number who shot first and dealt with consequences later. A lot more than there used to be. They’d all lost friends and comrades in the battle of Xandar, and the absence of a paycheck meant that those sores were still smarting. 

No, if Quill was gonna return to the Ravager fold, it had to be of his own accord.

 

* * *

  

Yondu found the Zune amid a clutter of Terran crap: black plastic pistols that the seller informed him shot hot air rather than plasma, and not even at scalding temperatures; microwaving machines too small to fit an interrogation victim inside; writing implements with dried-up ink that could be used to gouge out eyes in an emergency. Really, it was a wonder the species hadn’t gone extinct.

He picked it up, turning it over. It was slimmer than Quill’s Walkthing, more compact. The casing was smooth against the rough of his palms. 

“This come with music?” he asked. The seller nodded, and bit the chits before counting them into her purse.

 

* * *

 

 

“You gonna listen to that?” 

That was Kraglin, jogging to catch up as they tramped back to ship. Yondu spared him an eye roll. He held onto the Zune. It was too big for his inner pockets, which were designed only for unit chits, and he knew this port well enough to expect at least half the contents of his outer ones would be missing by the time he reached the gangplank, plus another quarter gone while he climbed it. 

“Naw. I’m gonna cook it for dinner.”

“I don’t think yer s’pposed to eat Terran batteries, sir…”

Kraglin trailed off. Yondu shook his head at him, and took the lead. 

 

* * *

 

First song on the Zune, and already Yondu was convinced this shit was a thousand times better than the crud Quill had blasted on repeat for the two-plus decades he’d been a space pirate. A guy had killed a man and was singing about it to his mama, embellished with  ‘ooooohs’ and sick riffs on an instrument he didn’t recognize. Lyrics were peppered with nonsense-words, or at least ones incompatible with his translator’s lexicon. But the tune was catchy enough to have his boot thumping of its own accord.

Yondu switched track before he caught himself humming.

Second song was slower-paced. Mushier. He’d gotten his hopes up too soon - Terrans really  _didn’t_ have anything else to sing about. By the third  _I can’t help falling in love with you,_ Yondu lost patience. 

A click of the toggle-button. A beat of silence.  _Frahnk See-nar-tra_ cut off mid-note. There was a second’s delay before the song changed, and Yondu toed off his boots before swinging to lay flat on the bed, glaring at the ceiling and waggling his holey socks to the slow strums of a Terran guitar.

_It’s not time to make a change…_

It was late into the night shift, and he’d reached that muzzy stage of tiredness where his focus kept drifting to the melody rather than the lyrics. Either the words were obfuscating, or he wasn’t as  _au fait_ with Terran songwriting cliches as he gave himself credit for, because he couldn’t for the life of him work out what it was on about.

Some guy was simultaneously singing about how he wanted to escape but didn’t want to move forwards in his life. It was a confusing hodgepodge of octaves and emotions that Yondu felt perpetually a moment away from understanding.

It was only when he began his third replay that he thought to check the title. 

 _Father and Son,_ by Cat Stevens.

Fuck.

Yondu ripped the buds out of his ears. He made to hurl the thing at the nearest wall - it was only the recollection that Terran tech was nowhere near as robust as its Andromeda-galaxy equivalent which stopped him. His fingers stayed locked around the Zune, a cage of shaking blue - shaking because he was  _tired,_ that was all; tired and old and forgotten as the papa in the song, who’d repeated his refrain to no avail. 

_It’s not time to make a change…_

He dropped the Zune on the bedside cabinet, rolled over and chased sleep with the same tenacity with which he’d chased his Terran through the bustling Knowhere streets, barging aside anyone who dared come between them.

 

* * *

  

The next time he played that song, it was spiteful. 

Yondu didn’t know you could listen to music with vehemence. Quill always claimed his tunes were meant to be enjoyed, cherished, loved. But that wasn't what Yondu felt, as he stalked from one side of the room to the other, one bud in his ear and the other dangling. It bounced against his chest in time with his paces, Zune gripped in his sweaty fist.

 _How dare he,_ he thought, lyrics trickling through his translator.  _How could he be that fuckin’ cruel. Doin’ that to his own old man. Don’t he know he’s breakin’ his heart?_

Rhyme schemes and syllabic counts didn’t survive the transition from Terran to Kree. That was the only language Yondu knew, besides the instinctual whistles that guided his arrow. He spoke pidgin - slave cant to be precise - with an atrocious accent that made him sound like a Planetbound hick from the Outer Rim. But he understood highborn Kree well enough, and that was how the words from the Zune were fed to him: in the guttural tongue of his masters. 

He stomped up and down his cabin, feeling trapped on his own ship, in his own skin, while Quill was off gallivanting across the stars. And all the while,  _Father and Son_ throbbed through his eardrums on repeat.

Finally, he couldn’t listen anymore. The younger man’s bullheadedness, his refusal to listen… Couldn’t he see that he was gonna repeat all his daddy's mistakes, if he kept on this way? That he’d turn out no better than him, when he ought to be so much more? 

Of  _course_ he had to fuckin’ shut up and listen. If Yondu’d done that when Stakar tried to lecture him on the code, perhaps he’d still have a family, rather than a gang of murderous thugs all salivating for a chance to stab him in the back.

No. That wasn’t fair - or at least, not entirely. He still had Kraglin, didn’t he? His first mate, his most loyal. And then there were Tullk, and Oblo, and Isla and Morlug and the others - the ones who’d followed him from Stakar’s clan and those he’d picked up along the way, with whom he could share the occasional drink, even a rare story and a smile. 

But Quill? Quill had meant more than all of them combined. 

Or rather, he’d meant something different than  _friend_ or  _crew_ , something which Yondu didn’t have the words to quantify (or refused to; same difference). And now he was gone, because he was fucking  _selfish,_ and because he thought saving the stupid galaxy was so much more important than dropping a single comm call to say  _hi cap’n, guess what? I’m alive._

Not even a ‘sorry I screwed you over’. Yondu’d bully one out of him eventually, but right now, all he wanted was to hear Quill’s voice.

This time, the Zune was introduced to the wall at speed. 

Yondu stayed bent from the throw, shoulders heaving. A part of him wanted to sprint to it, to cluck and fuss and examine it for cracks, to pet it like it was a lil’ critter rather than a lifeless chunk of metal that was the last remaining link between him and the boy he’d raised…

But no. If there  _was_ a link, it was entirely in Yondu’s head. Boy didn’t know the Zune existed - and at this rate, he never would.

 

* * *

 

The Zune lay there as jobs came and went, as Yondu came and went, and as Kraglin did to. It lay there on the nights the bed bounced and on those it lay silent and still, as Yondu hunched over his desk to tweak the fine print on contracts that were no way near as well-paid or as glamorous as those enjoyed by the other 99. Yondu and his mercenaries took them regardless. A man had to eat, after all.

But men had other needs too, needs that weren’t so easily sated on ship. After a rare successful heist, they all required a pick-me-up - and what better medicine than the sweet reek of incense, sex and silicone that hung around the Iron Lotus like smoke from a combustion-age engine?

Stakar had to go and ruin it, of course. Yondu was humiliated in front of his men -  _again -_  and tensions were rising _._

When Kraglin sauntered in, hands knee-ticklingly deep in his pockets and leer in place, and found his captain crouched in the corner of his cabin with the Zune on his lap, he scoffed and left without a word.

Yondu opened his mouth, meaning to holler after him. He had every right to - Kraggles was supposed to wait to be dismissed, while they were on the clock. But his thumb clipped the play button by mistake, and  _Father and Son_ started to play. It was so much easier to sink back against the wall and let his head dangle, so the light from the solars glanced red through his implant.

He must’ve left the song halfway through. It started from the middle - the son’s first verse, in fact.

Made sense. Wasn’t like he was the one Yondu empathized with. But rather than clicking the rewind button - it’d taken him a lot of prodding, poking, and cussing to work that one out - he let despondency steer his thumb away, slumping in a low slouch while the music played on.

 _How can I try to explain?  
_ _When I try he turns away again_

Ridiculous. Yondu hadn’t been the one to turn his back on the boy. He’d worked his ass off organizing the orb deal, and let Quill take point to demonstrate that he thought the Terran was mature enough to handle big moneypots. Thanos wasn’t his favorite business partner - especially since he affiliated with that renegade Accuser, whose mugshots in the  _Xandarian Daily Bounty Book_ made Yondu’s spine hurt, skin crawling with the physical memory of what his mind had long-since buried.

Dwelling on it tempted unlocking those doors. Yondu dragged his thoughts from their nadir, and kept listening.

_From the moment I could talk  
I was ordered to listen_

Huh. If Quill felt like he’d been lacking  _freedom_ , he oughta have tried growing up a Kree slave. Curfews, smacks round the ear, groundings, scrub-shifts, and beat-downs when the brat seriously misbehaved? They were nothing compared to that.

_Now there’s a way, and I know, that I have to go away  
I know I have to go _

It reminded Yondu of that other song Quill played to death, back when a broad back topped with ginger curls and bright orange headphones was a staple on the  _Eclector_ bridge. What was it called again? 

Oh yeah. Everyone knew it as ‘the Peena Coll-larder song’, but Quill insisted it was ‘Escape’. All about a mister and his missus who’d hit a rut in their relationship. They dreamed of eloping, but accidentally seduced each other and wound up right back where they started. Funny, light-hearted, and so saccharine it made Yondu’s remaining teeth ache. 

This  _Father and Son_ malarkey wasn’t nearly so satisfying. No circular ending; only he last melancholy chords and a profound sense of loss.  _Go away._ What did that mean? What did it entail? 

Perhaps, Yondu thought, this would be easier if he’d left Stakar’s band of his own accord, rather than being forced out at twenty-five, furious and alone in the galaxy. Who knew? Perhaps if he’d stayed another five years, another ten - if Ego had chosen another malleable little ex-slave to bribe with shinies, and convince that all the old god wanted was to meet his scattered progeny, because _didn’t every child deserve a loving family_? - he would know Quill’s side of the story.

But he didn’t, and he doesn’t. And if Ego had selected another, either Quill would be dead or the galaxy would be. Either way, this current turn of events was preferable. It was just a damn shame that Yondu’s happiness was the stake on which Quill's existence had been gambled.

 _All the times that I cried_  
_Keeping all the things I knew inside_  
_It’s hard, but it’s harder to ignore it_

Quill had always been of a weepy disposition. Yondu teased him for it no end growing up. From sobbing over his dearly-departed momma during the night cycle, to welling up that time they had to smuggle poached baby Bilgesnipe to the Collector, Quill was a non-stop production line of brine and mucus. Hell, sometimes he cried when he was  _happy._

Yondu recalled how confused he’d been when he sorted the space-patch that would make Quill’s music box as immortal as he was. The kid, who’d had the thing stolen from him with no explanation, ceased his angry hollering long enough to burst into tears. He’d clutched the Terran contraption to his chest, cradling it like Yondu had held the zune after he’d so-nearly busted it with his javelin impersonation. Unlike Yondu though, who’d handled his emotions in a very cool and manly fashion, the moment the Walkthing landed in Quill’s palms, sobs burst from him like coolant from a pipe under pressure. 

Yondu assumed he’d done something wrong. Fucked up the play function, or destroyed the thing’s sentimental value with his meddling. He’d scowled and turned, berating himself for ever  _trying_ if that was the thanks he got - but Quill’s quavery voice had stopped him.

“”C-c-c-cap’n?”

“Qu-qu-qu-quill?”

“D-d-d-dick. Th-thank you.” Another shuddery breath. “F-for this. Thank you so, so much.”

He hadn’t called him ‘sir’ or ‘boss’ like he was supposed to, but Yondu hadn’t complained. He’d shrugged and kept walking, and let himself smile once Kraglin was the only sod around to see it.

_Now there’s a way and I know that I have to go away  
I know I have to go _

Yondu rewound and replayed those last lines, again and again. He was searching for something - anything. Hidden meaning. A code. But there was fuck-all. Only that mournful but determined lilt to the main singer’s voice, as he convinced himself he had no other option but to abandon his father and start anew.

Yondu wasn’t getting anywhere with this. He pushed the back button until he heard the opening notes, then paused it and tucked it into his drawer, besides his spare prosthetic. Next time, he decided. Next time, he’d listen to it all the way through, with a fresh brain and a less bitter mindset. Then maybe he’d understand.

A thud at his door made him slam the drawer closed. Trinkets spilled from the top, others teetering on the brink. Yondu left ‘em to it. May the strongest survive.

“Wassup?” he called.

“Comin’ in on Beruit!”

Kraglin. Yondu should talk to him about the sappy lil' moment he'd witnessed, try to pass it off as nothing. Pretend he’d just gotten bored of seeing the Zune on the floor, and had tossed the damn thing into the incinerators. But all of that could wait, until he’d seen Quill again.

**Author's Note:**

> **Comments are greatly appreciated. x**


End file.
